


the road to hell is paved with good intent

by PaperRevolution



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 16:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: Mister Hermes took Orpheus under his wing, and Orpheus wants out.





	the road to hell is paved with good intent

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Broadway previews characterisation and ensuing character dynamics.

He looks forward to Persephone’s visits.

Persephone doesn’t soften her voice when she speaks to him. She doesn’t censor herself, the way Mister Hermes does.

(Mister Hermes seems to think he doesn’t notice. He always notices; it makes him uncomfortable in that vague wordless way that keeps him up at night, a slow rising panic gnawing at his insides.)

Persephone gets it. She understands what it’s like when people have an idea of you, and the harder you try to prove them wrong, the more their ideas hold fast. 

When she finds him work, Mister Hermes is surprised and pretends not to be dubious. Orpheus doesn’t know the right way to be around people. He will get hurt. Mister Hermes says these things to Persephone in Orpheus’ hearing, as though he were a houseplant or a hat-stand.

Orpheus wants to scream.

He takes the job. He works hard. Persephone yells at him to pick up the pace when he dawdles, and it startles him, but then it makes him feel like a real person. Real people get yelled at. Real people make mistakes and get called out on them. How else would they learn? He begins to see the world in a new way.

Mister Hermes asks him constantly whether he’s all right. (“A’ight?” he’ll ask with a too-casual grin, glancing over his shoulder). Orpheus shrugs and smiles. He thinks about telling Mister Hermes about the times when everything gets too loud and too bright and the chaos of sound makes him feel like something is crawling under his skin, but he knows by now that if you tell someone about one bad thing and six good ones, they’ll still cling on to the bad one. So it’s better never to tell people the bad things at all. 

Persephone leaves for the winter, and Orpheus retreats. He sits and he makes his music, which is the only way he can get people to really listen to him. 

*

Mister Hermes tells him not to come on too strong, and Orpheus is filled with an all-consuming, overwhelming need to do the opposite. It is like a physical itch.

“Come home with me!” He hears himself blurt out. And the girl laughs and asks him why.

Orpheus is trying to find the best words and put them in the right order when Mister Hermes says with an indulgent smile:

“Show her what you’re working on.”

Orpheus wants to punch him in the mouth. Or to disappear into the ground. Or maybe both. His face flames scarlet.

None of this is the way it should be.

*

He has to finish the song.

The best words in the right order. It’s only possible to think of them if he blocks everything else out. Otherwise, the words get all jumbled up and he’s useless.

Eurydice is like Persephone and doesn’t pull her punches. She doesn’t talk down to him. Orpheus appreciates this in ways he can’t give voice to, but still.

He starts to think of himself as something not that different from the backpack she totes around with her. A load. He is a load.

He has to finish the song. It will fix the world.

It will fix him.

*

One day, when Mister Hermes visits, Orpheus hears him telling Eurydice:

“Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I’ve coddled the boy too much; let him live too much in his own world.”

Eurydice laughs humourlessly. 

“You know what they say,” she replies, and her voice is colder than stones. “The road to hell is paved with good intent.”

Orpheus falls in love with her all over again and knows that he has to do right by her.

He has to finish the song.


End file.
